Thanks for the Hard Rock update. Good to hear the manufacturers sounding so excited about the project. It sounds like they're all really into the thematic possibilities of the attractions, and that's going to hopefully help Hard Rock rise above some of the competition (the national competition. I'm pretty sure they'll rise above Family Kingdom).

Cool. I did a tour of Sally Corp. in Jacksonville last year. Pretty neat the way they make these rides. 6 flags has been going down for many many years. I have been going to all the ones in Texas and it is sad to see what has happened. Maybe he should find out what the REAL people want.

As bad as Six Flags is right now, you can't really blame Shapiro for the state it's in. Six Flags began paving the road to ruin almost 10 years ago, when previous management decided to invest in coasters and only coasters, overextend themselves by buying up parks they couldn't make better, and making budget cuts in places they shouldn't have. They tried to become the McDonalds of amusement parks, and it came back to bite them.....hard.

The guy's only been there a year, and he has a real mess to clean up, so I'm going to reserve my judgements of him for a while. I will say that a lot of the things he said would happen this year didn't really happen, and that I think it's a big mistake selling a particular park in California, but other than that, I'll just sit back and see what happens next year.

I'm glad to see that Hard Rock will be bringing in some big name manufacturers for their rides. Interestingly enough, most of these makers are known primarily for coasters. The only ones who aren't are Huss with the spin rides and Sally Corp, who makes dark rides. In addition to the B&M ride, I would expect some kind of smaller coaster. Another interesting note is that Chance Morgan and Vekoma appear to be "teaming up" on some attractions. I'm excited to see more park renderings.

I don't know about the other Six Flags parks (haven't visited them this year) but Six Flags Marine World is MUCH cleaner, the staff seems more helpful (at least slightly), AND the food choices seem to have improved in the last year. Seems like the right direction to me...